Outside Marion Barry’s Anacostia home, there would be no mention of his flaws or past wrongdoings. A woman wearing a t-shirt from his 2004 comeback Council campaign insisted on it, crying out “We don’t want to hear it!”

The best version of Marion Barry — the man behind a summer jobs program, the civil rights activist, the father, the symbol of hope for low-income Washingtonians — was celebrated in Anacostia Sunday night, as dozens of mourners marched down Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE chanting “D.C.! Mayor-for-life!” while drums were played. The Ward 8 Councilmember and four-term mayor died early Sunday.

“Marion rode this thing called life until the wheels fell off,” E. Gail Holness, a pastor at Christ Our Redeemer AME Church, said. “And he rode it well.”

“In his last days, he always said, ‘God is good,”‘ Holness continued. “We need to understand and remember his legacy because he had a powerful legacy. There’s a cloud of witnesses out here tonight who recognize that we are hurt and sad. … We want to find the good and praise it.”

Barry’s godson, Dennis Harvey — who was featured in the HBO documentary The Nine Lives of Marion Barry — thanked everyone for “their love and support,” and invited them to view Barry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey at the Old Congress Heights School. “We are able to come together and put away a great man, a legend,” he said.

A march from Barry’s home on Talbert Street SE — marked by chants like “We love Marion Barry!” — ended at the Big Chair on MLK Avenue, where former Councilmembers Frank Smith (Ward 1) and Sandy Allen (Ward 8) remembered Barry. Mayor-elect Muriel Bowser would do the same at the screening of Barry’s interview with Oprah.

When the speeches were done, one of the vigil’s organizers released two white pigeons into the night. “That’s the spirit of Marion Barry, right there.”